Companion
by ravenwings52
Summary: Valkyrie waits for something she refuses, Skulduggery tries to let go of something he can't live without, the Doctor tries to move on while clinging on to the past, and Rose keeps on missing the one thing she seeks.
1. Chapter 1

"Ah! Ireland. Twenty-first century, if I'm not wrong."

Valkyrie stared at the man in front of her. He had appeared just a little while ago in the middle of her escape. She had heard a weird noise when she was running away from some vampires, and practically ran straight into him when he stepped out of a blue box of all things. He sort of reminded her of Skulduggery: tall, skinny, mysterious, a bit of a know-it-all, and strange.

Suddenly, she heard the telltale pants of the three monsters behind her, and she remembered why she was out of breath. She began to run again, but realized that the man was following her. She cursed, and shoved him to the side.

He looked momentarily surprised, before catching up to her. She hoisted herself over a barred chain link fence, expecting the man to leave, but surprisingly, he somehow unlocked the gate like Tanith.

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. So the man was a sorcerer. That would explain how he got here. But he still had to go. She wouldn't let him be killed by vampires because he wouldn't get out of the way. She continued to make her way towards the pier, hoping to lose him on her way through the woods.

Unfortunately, it was too late. They were already catching up to her, and it seemed like the only course of action was to throw him into the water with her. As Valkyrie neared the pier, she splayed her hand, sending the brown-haired man into the salt water. His eyes opened wide in shock for a split-second before his head went underwater; Valkyrie hoped that the man could swim before diving into the frigid water as well.

She noticed him trying to reach the surface, but she shoved his head down, gesturing for him to wait until the vampires left. He gave a slight nod, and they waited silently for another few seconds before throwing themselves onto the pier, spluttering for air.

"Well. That was a type of hematophagous Chiroptera-Homo Sapiens I've never encountered before."

Valkyrie somehow managed to give him the, 'speak English, please' look while using her magic to remove most of the water from her hair.

"Blood-sucking bat-human. Vampire, as you humans call 'em."

"'You humans'? What's that supposed to mean? You an alien or something?" Valkyrie demanded suspiciously.

"Actually, yes."

"Su-u-u-re. And my best friend's a skeleton."

"You don't believe me."

"No, really. My best friend's a skeleton."

The man frowned for a second.

"Anyways, who are you?" Valkyrie demanded.

"I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor what?"

"Just the Doctor." His eyes held a far away look in them, as if he was remembering someone that he could never see again.

Valkyrie nodded. It wasn't the strangest name she had heard.

"I'm Valkyrie Cain."

The Doctor seemed to regain his composure, and got up, shaking the water out of his hair.

"Well, Valkyrie Cain, it was nice meeting you. Now, I've got somewhere to get to..."

Valkyrie leapt up.

"Hold on! You can't just go running off like this."

The Doctor gave her a sad smile.

"Yes I can. This is me, running off like always. Never staying."

"And where exactly are you going to go? There's no way that you'll be able to make to back to that blue box of yours without running into more vampires. You were pretty much useless back there. I'm pretty sure that I deserve a thank you at the very least. I did save your life."

The Doctor laughed.

"Well, thank you."

He turned to leave.

"I'm coming with you." She amended that statement, adding, "Not to stay, just to make sure that you don't kill yourself."

The Doctor stared at her, then smiled a genuine smile.

"Well then! Off we go. Allons-y!"

Valkyrie followed him down a dark alley. He was playing with a screwdriver-type thing.

"How do you know where your box is?"

"TARDIS."

"A what?"

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

"A time machine."

The Doctor paused.

"It travels through space, too."

"We have teleporters for that."

"Well, you're mighty hard to impress, aren't you?"

Valkyrie grinned.

"I've seen too much to be surprised anymore, and I've got hundreds of years more of strange things to encounter."

The Doctor looked at her oddly.

"Hundreds of years?"

"Yeah..."

They turned around another to a small corner where the box was sitting.

"Huh. No vampires." Valkyrie muttered. She just hoped that Skulduggery had gotten rid of his share this time around; it would be annoying if she had to fight a whole lot of them. The Doctor took out some keys and unlocked the door.

Skulduggery hadn't. A bunch of vampires ran around the corner.

The door opened.

"In! Get in now!"

Valkyrie hastily followed the Doctor's order. The two collapsed inside of the box, breathing heavily as they heard the vampires trying to get in.

Valkyrie looked around the TARDIS.

"It's bigger on the inside," was all that she could manage. The walls were curved, and there was some sort of console in the center of it all. A picture of a girl was taped to one of the walls.

"Yes it is," the Doctor agreed happily. He toggled with something on a huge hunk of junk in the middle of the room, and Valkyrie heard the same noise from earlier echo throughout the box. The noise outside subsided, and Valkyrie opened the door again.

"We're in front of my house."

The Doctor looked up.

"So we are."

Valkyrie hesitated.

"Where will you go now?"

The Doctor shrugged.

"Here, there, anywhere in the universe that needs me."

Valkyrie nodded.

"You know... You could come with me. See the whole galaxy. Be my companion."

Valkyrie froze.

"I'm sorry, but... I'm already somebody's... um... companion."

He nodded.

"Yeah... Okay. See you around."

She stepped outside. Skulduggery was waiting in the Bentley.

"Doctor?"

He turned.

"Don't go running forever, all right? You'll find her."

He smiled.

She shut the door, and didn't look back.


	2. Chapter 2

Three weeks. Three whole weeks, yet Valkyrie couldn't forget him. Sometimes, she wondered whether she should've gone with him, if only to make sure he wasn't alone. After all, he was a time traveler too, wasn't he? She could stay with him, then come back to Skulduggery when she was needed.

But she remembered what had happened that night, and she knew that she couldn't leave Skulduggery as much as she wanted to go.

_"So, is he your new boyfriend?" Skulduggery asked, as she got into the car._

_"Nah. He's looking for someone else."_

_"Seatbelt," he reminded her._

_Valkyrie rolled her eyes._

_"By the way, you didn't take care of your share of the vampires. The Doctor and I ran into a whole bunch of them."_

_"I threw my lot of them into a cage. They should've ripped each other to pieces."_

_"Well, they escaped."_

_"Who's this Doctor, then, if he's not your boyfriend?" Skulduggery questioned, returning to the initial topic._

_"He's... He's a lonely man. So old, but so young, and he's seen so much. He's mysterious, lively to the point of being annoying, but somehow he's not. He's fantastic, amazing, clever, magical, different. He's... something else."_

_Skulduggery didn't say anything for a minute._

_"He sounds wonderful."_

_"He was."_

_They sat there, side by side in the silence like they usually did, but instead of companionable, the atmosphere was unbearable._

_Finally, Valkyrie couldn't take it anymore._

_"Did I do something?" She half-yelled at him. Skulduggery sounded like he was trying to restrain himself._

_"No," he said. "I was just surprised that you didn't go with him, if he's so great."_

_She almost slapped him._

_"He did ask me to go with him."_

_Skulduggery straightened, slightly shocked._

_"Why didn't you go?"_

_"Contrary to popular belief, I don't stay with you for just the thrills and adventures and the magic. I stay with you because you're my friend, my partner, you idiot. I love you, remember? As stupid as you are."_

_Skulduggery relaxed slightly, and she realized that he really was scared that she would leave him._

_"Oh, come here," she said, and leaned over to hug him. "You don't have to take me home tonight. I'll sleep over. You have pizza, right?"_

_"What makes you think that I want to have you over?" He teased, and she knew that he would be fine now._

If only she could let go of this silly notion that she had let a once-in-a-lifetime chance slide right through her grasp. It wouldn't be right to try and take place of that girl he was looking for, anyways. She knew that he only wanted her to come because he was lonely, and maybe because she would live longer too.

But if she knew all of this, why couldn't she just forget the Doctor?

* * *

Five months had passed. Well, five months and thirteen days, to be exact. But Valkyrie wasn't counting.

She couldn't get rid of the Doctor, it seemed. She found herself listening for the telltale sound of his TARDIS, wearing more blue, paying attention whenever anybody mentioned the word 'doctor', and other ridiculous things. Skulduggery was starting to notice, too.

_"Valkyrie, you have to stay awake. We'll be there soon."_

_Her head hurt so much and she was so sleepy... Something red was clouding her vision in her right eye. She was yelling in her head, Darquesse. Telling her to let her out. Then she would be fine..._

_"I'm going to take you to Doctor Nye and you'll be okay. It'll fix you up, like usual."_

_Valkyrie tried to get up, but her body felt so heavy._

_"D-doctor?" She whispered. "Is he here?"_

_Skulduggery took his foot off of the gas pedal for a second, and turned to look at her._

_"No, but I'm taking you to it right now... Hold on, 'him'? Valkyrie, you have got to stay awake!"_

_Her words were slurred._

_"Silly, I don' mean Nye... I mean the Doctor. Blue box doctor. Lonely doctor. D'ya think he's found 'er yet?"_

_Skulduggery gripped the steering wheel more tightly with his left hand and reached down with his right to squeeze her shoulder tightly._

_"Valkyrie, please."_

_She thought that she saw a flash of blue in the sky, but she blinked and it disappeared. She blinked again, and this time her eyes wouldn't open properly..._

_She could hear Skulduggery yelling, and then the Bentley stopped and he was lifting her out of the car and something warm was trickling from her forehead and she couldn't help it, she was losing her grip on reality, but she had to see him, she had to see the Doctor with his TARDIS and his screwdriver and... And... And..._

He hadn't talked about any of it afterwards. She knew that he wanted to forget that night, when he had acted completely out of character, scared, so scared. He had never yelled, never pleaded, even when she was Darquesse. He had never acted so utterly human before. And she didn't want him to remember her talking about the Doctor.

So they ignored it.

* * *

Eight months, two weeks, and four days.

She had waited so long, so long for something that she had refused. And she would refuse again for Skulduggery.

But now he was there, standing in the doorway of his blue box, watching them silently.

And she wasn't sure what she would choose.

* * *

"Go on."

Skulduggery's voice broke the silence.

"Go with him."

Valkyrie looked between the two men.

The Doctor, the one who ran away. The lonely, sad, regretful man who saved worlds and planets and saw the universe. The one who lost everything, the one who would go on and on and on. The one who gave mercy. The oncoming storm.

Skulduggery, the one who came back. The twisted, angry, bitter man who ended a war. The one who lost his family and himself for a short while. The one who lived though he didn't want to. The one who killed. The skeleton detective.

She could have everything, then lose it in a heartbeat, or keep what she had and lose it even faster. The mystery. The partner. A stranger. A friend.

"No, you idiot," she said, stepping towards Skulduggery. "Until the end, remember?"

He nodded, and she wrapped her arms around him for a second.

When she looked back, the Doctor was gone.

* * *

Eight months, two weeks, and five days. Eight months, two weeks, and six days. Three weeks.

She had chosen, twice.

So why couldn't she forget?


End file.
